Screwing up BESCOM way

Till some months back I had peace of mind paying BESCOM (Electricity Bills) because I had added BESCOM as a biller in my bank account. However when BESCOM upgraded its billing system, (provided by Infosys) it took time for me to realize that the basic ingredient of a bill is missing.

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Religious faith for rescue

Religion is not what you are born in. It is what you experience. Religious texts only help you in attaining this experience. Religion is always personal, like it was followed centuries before in India.

Only with the advent of foreign nationals who had their own faith, which they used as a socially binding factor this idea has changed in India.

In an age when religious preaching has become a norm, a rethinking is necessary. Just one question is enough for this rethinking.

Am I following this religion for boasting in public, or to know myself?

If you answer this question with utmost truth, I am certain that the differences between various faiths will cease to exist. After all religion is a tool of carrying faith, and not hatred.

Hindus are common to this knowledge and that is the only reason why Muslims, Christians and other religions were welcomed to stay here. In Hinduism Atman is the personal deity which needs to be known first. Unlike other religions which do not tolerate others faiths, India was always different. It not only welcomed the other faiths, but also fostered and environment where they could grow even better freely.

Until recent times this was the case. But In India also the ideas of religion has seemed to change maybe due to the everyday interface between other faiths. This has led to people of one faith killing other, and making them an enemy for life.

Maybe this is good time for people in every faith to remain silent and think, what is faith and religion. If and only if it leads to a personal affair, humanity can be saved. Otherwise we will be loitering like we are today. It is a time of regeneration for us, and we should not miss this opportunity.

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Bhagavad Gita and Action

I have heard from lot of people that through Bhagavad Gita God endorses "Fight" and some others mention "Inactivity". Let me try to understand why people say like this.

In Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna calls upon Arjuna for fighting his relatives. As a normal human being we are like Arjuna. We cannot fight our relatives (near and dear ones). After all why should one fight to kill such people whom you love. Our thoughts revolve around this "sentiments" because our point-of-view is very limited. We are wearing biased glasses. Whatever we see we are biased. Consider an example if Arjuna was fighting some unknown enemies, he would not have hesitated.

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Discovering our true identity

Who am I?

The most famous question which made Swami Vivekananda start searching his guru, the phrase recommended by Sri Ramana Maharshi as the only mantra which will lead to self-realisation is the most powerful one can ask himself.

What is our identity? Its not definitely our body, says those who have experienced this great powerful self. If we are not to be identified as this body, then what else?

It is our self. It resides in our heart (not the physical heart) but the more powerful one on the right side of our chest. It could be anything in the body, but it shape or size does not matter to those who are searching for it.

After all it helps in permanent peace. It is the only God or love the Sanyasis or seers have in this world. This is also referred to as krishna bakthi in Bhagavatham and other scriptures.

Our Upanishads and Vedas does not prescribe any method for self-realisation to women. This is because traditionally women are considered to be love pots. Only they can love their families without expecting anything in return. This is difficult for men to understand and digest. Krishna bhakti is nothing more than what our women do everyday. It is thus very easy for them to be enlightened. But it is also a factor that prevents them from attaining this enlightenment.

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Why pray/meditate daily?

I am not sure whether you pray daily. If you do, then you know the path to our self-realisation. If you do not, you are turning your back towards our end goal in this life.

What is Self-Realisation?
The basic premise of self-realization is that there exists an authentic Self (or 'soul') which has to be discovered by psychological or spiritual self-striving.

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Sanathana dharma aka Hinduism

I am not a religious fundamentalist. This is my opening and concluding statement. But I love to be an archeologist who is digging deep into our religious texts to try to understand what is their real purpose.

In my childhood I was as confused as more Hindus are now. Why do we have so many gods. Whom should I pray to make my life peaceful. Some say even I am god as I was created by him. Some say there is no god, some say our nature is god. My parents show me the pictures and idols at temples and introduce it as god. I was confused.

I was fascinated with books at that age. I was keen in reading books particularly novels in Malayalam. Later this interest of novels transformed into reading biographies. Starting from our father of nation, Mahatma Gandhi it ended in Swami Vivekananda.

In his books I found a deep meaning of sense called India. It was here that my life took a sharp turn. I started to think freely. Why do I need to pray to god? Where is god? Has god got form? Many similar questions started to sweep in my mind. I began to learn a lot from our vedic texts. As I did not know go read Sanskrit I had to get this information second hand only. But I decided one thing.

I will start believing. This was the major break through. I believed in god and as Adi Shankaracharya taught non-dualism or Advaita, if there must be god then each and every thing around me is also created like me by him. Then why not believe in anything. Therefore I believe in whatever our Vedas says.

Now I believe why our Vedas says whatever way you come you will reach god. We are like rivers flowing from him and destined to reach him finally. Our purpose of life is then to make the land we are flowing through fertile. Our job or karma is then to provide means to those require our help, and then quietly flow away to reach the seas.

We therefore have identified two gods in this path. One is the mountain from which we are born or our parents. The second is the sea in which we join at lat. Do I die permanently then? Never.

When I join the sea I become one with god. And then after some time get evaporated and fit into the skies. Then in the form of rain I pour back to be a river or a stream once again. This is the main content I have come to know of till now.

Though there are even deeper meanings to our life, I am happy with this definition. I came to know of this meaning from our vedas. These Vedas are our cultural heritage. They must be preserved the way it was transmitted to us.

This is where my second interest lies. To preserve our culture. Unlike what has happened in now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tibet etc where Sanathana Dharma had once flourished, it should be preserved in India at least. It should not merely become a mere book in our museums where our future generations will just praise it and forget its real meaning.

For this purpose at least there should be unity among Hindus. We must preserve our history. Unlike what British has taught us our history is not myth (which means a widely held but false belief or idea). It is ITHIHASA. The Sanskrit meaning of the word which I learned recently. It means "It thus happened."

Join me in preserving our history. Understand it, spread its meaning.

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Are you frustrated of selling a product which does not fit the market?

India is a young country in terms of home grown business is concerned. For the rest of our requirements we import. But most of the products which are sold outside of our country are not directly sellable in our country. The trick is handled by marketing.

But is this a right approach?

I definitely think otherwise. But the markets react opposite to what I think. Why is this different from our logical thinking?

Indians do a lot of research before buying a product. I know my parents get to know the quality and price of every product they buy. Even if they are buying rice, they used to go about the entire market area before buying. This is not just the case with my parents. It is evident from the fact that all Indian markets offer same products in same place. For example in Bangalore if you want to buy electronics you can simply walk to S.P.road market place. All the shops deal similar products. Why is this proximity? Our business persons understand our buying habits.

If the foreign business houses are not able to penetrate our markets it is because they lack our fabric.

How do we live in an organization which sells such products then? You must front-end to understand the harmonious relationship between our people whom we know better and find a suitable place to bridge the gap.

I am inspired today with a small video of Devdutt Patnaik at TED. It made me think that even I can make the difference. Dedicating this post to thousands like me.

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SOLVED - Unsubscribe from BSNL Voice Chat

It was really a pain in the wrong place, with BSNL for nearly 2 weeks now. I got a message stating that I have been subscribed to Voice Chat service for a week and Rs. 10 was deducted. In the message there was an option to unsubscribe, which did not work at all.

I googled a lot, and it seems that BSNL has even tricked Google. There is no mention of the customer service number of BSNL, let alone to get information about unsubscribing from Voice Chat.

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7 Islands from Srimad Bhagavatham

I am listening to Srimad Bhagavatham now-a-days and my thoughts in this midnight revolve around the 7 islands that are discussed in Srimad Bhagavatham.

From the Puranic Encyclopedia 

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Are you made of Passion?

Do you think lack of sleep can kill your health? If you say yes, do not read on. This is not for you. I am talking about passion here, for which the main enemy is sleep and or laziness.

I am sure most of us would have read about our former president A.P.J.Abdul Kalam who sleeps a lot less than normal doctors would advise. Ever wondered to ask the doctors how he is surviving healthy? A simple answer could be his passion.

If you are a mother you know what is passion. Taking care of your child even if you are in deep-trouble, is just one way of identifying what a passion is. This is the easiest example I can think of now.

Why I chose to wrote about passion today? I came across a share in social media some days back. The image had a captivating caption. "Dreams Don't work unless you do." Such a simple yet powerful statement. No one is talking here about the normal everyday dreams. It is the special ones you aspire to become, or try to achieve. Dreams are always associated with such aspirations. Is it because most of us try to ignore our aspirations by each passing day. When we were young, we had enough time to think about what we can become. But every milestone in our life slows us down from achieving this.

It requires someone like A.P.J.Abdul Kalam to give us the strength to think that even aspirations/dreams are achievable. Our aspirations/dreams are like a boat which tend to fall apart in turbulent weather, whereas if we tend to be like a ship our aspirations/dreams have chances of surviving and even achieving.

Devote some time daily to yourself and nurturing your aspiration. Not thinking of your dreams everyday is one way of sure failure. But I believe in something different. If you have a passion, and after a hibernation period of at least one month does not harm your passion, you can definitely achieve what you dreamt of.

So what are you made of?

Thanking the original slide which aspired me to write this post, re-sharing it below with a disclaimer of not owning the copyright for this:

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A common misconception about India

What we know now, has been passed on by our parents. It is always with proud that we think of our parents. They teach us, train us, support us in all ways they can.

Well having said that why do we not recognize our forefathers who are the starting of the chain we are in.

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A weak travel

Week of travel, weaker me
Peek of faith, stronger me
Lack of hope, worried me
Nothing can be done, its all God's grace.

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A journey unreserved

If you are living in India and if you travel a lot through Indian Railways you know what I am going to write. The Railways created by the British while they were here continues till today with bare necessary changes which you may call modernisation.

New routes have been added, new coaches (with same kind of design) has been added, computerisation of ticketing has been added, computerisation of train management has been added etc.

But has the user experience changed? Has the commuters changed? I can't think otherwise.

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Micromax Funbook P300 - Photos

Micromax is a consumer electronics company based in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It focuses on the manufacturing of mobile telephones, tablet PCs & LED Televisions. Micromax is the 12th largest handset manufacturer in the world and 3rd largest manufacturer in India. According to industry analysts, as of 2012, micromax leads the Indian tablet market with a share of 18.4%, ahead of Samsung and Apple, and is the third largest mobile phone vendor in terms of volume. The company's rapid market share growth since it entered the Indian mobile devices market in 2008 is primarily attributed to its strategy of aggressive low pricing in the entry-level segments of its products and its wide distribution setup. [Source Wikipedia]

The tablet I am going to write about in this post is Funbook P300 which was launched in early 2012.

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